U of Alabama shooting; three dead, professor in custody

[Anguirus]

Biology professor charged in fatal shooting at University of Alabama, Huntsville

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – A biology professor at the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus has been charged with murder in the shooting deaths of three fellow biology professors at the campus.

Authorities say Amy Bishop, an instructor and researcher at the university, opened fire during a faculty meeting, killing the three and injuring three other school employees. Bishop has been charged with one count of capital murder, which means she could face the death penalty if convicted.

Bishop was taken Friday night in handcuffs from a police precinct to the county jail and could be heard saying, "It didn't happen. There's no way .... they are still alive."

No students were harmed in the shooting Friday.

There was a much longer article up before they updated with this one. I'm trying to find that version now. There's also a video at the link that I haven't seen yet.

[Anguirus]

Ok, here is a fuller article.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – A biology professor at the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus was charged with murder late Friday in the shooting deaths of three fellow biology professors at the campus.

Authorities say Amy Bishop, an instructor and researcher at the university, opened fire during an afternoon faculty meeting, killing the three and injuring three other school employees. Bishop has been charged with one count of capital murder, which means she could face the death penalty if convicted.

Bishop was taken Friday night in handcuffs from a police precinct to the county jail and could be heard saying, "It didn't happen. There's no way .... they are still alive."

Police said they were also interviewing a man as "a person of interest."

University spokesman Ray Garner said the three killed were Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, and two other faculty members, Maria Ragland Davis and Adriel Johnson.

Two others are in critical condition, and a third who was wounded was upgraded to fair condition. The injured were identified as department members Luis Cruz-Vera, who was listed in fair condition and Joseph Leahy, in critical condition in intensive care, and staffer Stephanie Monticello, also in critical condition in intensive care.

No students were harmed in the shooting.

Sammie Lee Davis said his wife, Maria Ragland Davis, was a researcher who had tenure at the university.

In a brief phone interview, he said he was told his wife was at a meeting to discuss the tenure status of another faculty member who got angry and started shooting.

He said his wife had mentioned the shooter before, describing the woman as "not being able to deal with reality" and "not as good as she thought she was."

Bishop, a neurobiologist from Harvard University, joined the UAH biology faculty as an assistant professor in fall 2003.

Bishop and her husband placed third in a statewide university business plan competition in July 2007, presenting a portable cell incubator they had invented. They won $25,000 to help start a company to market the device.

Amanda Tucker, a junior nursing major from Alabaster, Ala., had Amy Bishop for anatomy about a year ago. Tucker said a group of students went to a dean complaining about Bishop's performance in the classroom, and Tucker signed a petition complaining about Bishop.

"When it came down to tests, and people asked her what was the best way to study, she'd just tell you, `Read the book.' When the test came, there were just ridiculous questions. No one even knew what she was asking,'" said Tucker.

Andrea Bennett, a sophomore majoring in nursing, was in one of Bishop's classes Friday morning.

Bennett said nothing seemed unusual, but she described Bishop as being "very weird" and "a really big nerd."

"She's well-known on campus, but I wouldn't say she's a good teacher. I've heard a lot of complaints," Bennett said. "She's a genius, but she really just can't explain things."

Bennett, an athlete at UAH, said her coach told her team Bishop had been denied tenure and that may have led to the shooting.

"She went to Harvard, so she is very smart. I can see that her getting denied tenure at UAH would be pretty upsetting," said Bennett.

Nick Lawton, the son of a biology professor at the school, said his father was not among the victims, but he did not know much more.

Lawton, 25, also took an anatomy and physiology class with Bishop last semester. He described her as funny and accommodating with students.

"She lectured from the textbook, mostly stuck to the subject matter at hand," Nick Lawton said. "She seemed like a nice enough professor."

Sophomore Erin Johnson told The Huntsville Times a biology faculty meeting was under way when she heard screams coming from a conference room.

University police secured the building and students were cleared from it. There was still a heavy police presence on campus Friday night, with police tape cordoning off the main entrance to the university.

The Huntsville campus has about 7,500 students in northern Alabama, not far from the Tennessee line. The university is known for its scientific and engineering programs and often works closely with NASA.

The space agency has a research center on the school's campus, where many scientists and engineers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center perform Earth and space science research and development.

The university posted a message on its Web site Friday afternoon telling students the campus was closed Friday night and all students were encouraged to go home. Counselors were available to speak with students.

It's the second shooting in a week on an area campus. Last Friday, a 14-year-old student was killed in a middle school hallway in nearby Madison, allegedly by a fellow student.

"This town is unaccustomed to shootings and multiple deaths," Garner said.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Cant say I blame her. If I got my PhD at Harvard and could only get a position in Alabama, I would probably go on a shooting spree too.

[MKSheppard]

Cant say I blame her. If I got my PhD at Harvard and could only get a position in Alabama, I would probably go on a shooting spree too.

I sure wish I had that person's problems. Oh noes, I got denied tenure! I wish...

[[R_H]]

Quite a stupid thing for such an intelligent person to do. Maybe she'll get tenure in the prison's GED program.

[AMT]

It sounds like the person is just very unbalanced... I wonder what psychological issues she has, if any.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Cant say I blame her. If I got my PhD at Harvard and could only get a position in Alabama, I would probably go on a shooting spree too.

What? If you bothered to monitor how competitive the competition for tenure track places at top universities, you will soon realize that it is fiercely competitive, with as many as 200-300 people fighting for that one position, and it often comes down to a coin toss for the top listed 3, of which I would willing to bet that the top 10-20 are probably equally good. And often, it comes down to who has the best connections/reputation.

That, and right now the hiring in academia across the US is at an all time low. Not many tenure track professors who so happen to have their tenure review this year are going to make it, to be bloody honest.

And a PhD from Harvard is by no means a quick ticket to a job.

[Liberty]

Cant say I blame her. If I got my PhD at Harvard and could only get a position in Alabama, I would probably go on a shooting spree too.

What? If you bothered to monitor how competitive the competition for tenure track places at top universities, you will soon realize that it is fiercely competitive, with as many as 200-300 people fighting for that one position, and it often comes down to a coin toss for the top listed 3, of which I would willing to bet that the top 10-20 are probably equally good. And often, it comes down to who has the best connections/reputation.

That, and right now the hiring in academia across the US is at an all time low. Not many tenure track professors who so happen to have their tenure review this year are going to make it, to be bloody honest.

And a PhD from Harvard is by no means a quick ticket to a job.

For one who hopes to make it into academe, this is depressing. Not that I didn't know, though. I have a history prof who does his best to persuade every student he comes into contact with to not pursue a PhD in history for just this reason.

[Edi]

Even having a PhD in and of itself says absolutely nothing about the ability to teach, which does factor into getting tenure (or at least should). I'm very good at English and some other subjects. I'd not be nearly as good at teaching them, because that requires a different skillset independent of the subject matter.

The PhD only tells that you're good at the subject matter of the PhD.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Even having a PhD in and of itself says absolutely nothing about the ability to teach, which does factor into getting tenure (or at least should). I'm very good at English and some other subjects. I'd not be nearly as good at teaching them, because that requires a different skillset independent of the subject matter.

The PhD only tells that you're good at the subject matter of the PhD.

Actually, if the professor brings tonne of grants to the dept, he could well get the job with or without good teaching. Lots of grants means more money for the department. (Every university has a tax on grants. Some are as much as 60%).

[ArmorPierce]

I had a full time professor that was denied professor and had to move on to another job despite her being the only professor there that actually attempted to connect with the students and assist with the program etc whilst the tenure professors seemed a lot more lazy to me.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

For one who hopes to make it into academe, this is depressing. Not that I didn't know, though. I have a history prof who does his best to persuade every student he comes into contact with to not pursue a PhD in history for just this reason.

If you are in humanities, the odds of getting a job now is near negligible. A lot of schools are simply no hiring at all. It's pretty bad as it is in the Sciences, never mind the other "less profitable" fields.

[Liberty]

For one who hopes to make it into academe, this is depressing. Not that I didn't know, though. I have a history prof who does his best to persuade every student he comes into contact with to not pursue a PhD in history for just this reason.

If you are in humanities, the odds of getting a job now is near negligible. A lot of schools are simply no hiring at all. It's pretty bad as it is in the Sciences, never mind the other "less profitable" fields.

Right. That's why I've said that I would not be pursuing history if I needed to be a sole breadwinner. It's really too bad it's like this, though, because history really is important.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Cant say I blame her. If I got my PhD at Harvard and could only get a position in Alabama, I would probably go on a shooting spree too.

What? If you bothered to monitor how competitive the competition for tenure track places at top universities, you will soon realize that it is fiercely competitive, with as many as 200-300 people fighting for that one position, and it often comes down to a coin toss for the top listed 3, of which I would willing to bet that the top 10-20 are probably equally good. And often, it comes down to who has the best connections/reputation.

That, and right now the hiring in academia across the US is at an all time low. Not many tenure track professors who so happen to have their tenure review this year are going to make it, to be bloody honest.

And a PhD from Harvard is by no means a quick ticket to a job.

I was joking. I am a PhD student right now and am looking at that for my future job prospects. Dont presume to lecture me on the competitive nature of academia. I am well aware.

[Mr. Coffee]

Turns out she killed "accidentally" killed her brother 20 years ago and now all of a sudden the Boston PD can't find the case files. Also, UAH had one of those panic enmail/call everyone systems installed after the V-Tech shootings a couple years back. The Campus police for some reason didn't bother to activate the system until an hour and a half, damned near two hours AFTER the shooter was already in custody. I think Chief what's his nuts is about to lose his damned job. While they're at it they should look into Dr. Williams and his new office. Campus cops are understaffed and under funded (hell, most campus services are for that matter), but Dr. "Call Me Dave" Williams has a brand new office...

[Dave]

Turns out she killed "accidentally" killed her brother 20 years ago and now all of a sudden the Boston PD can't find the case files. Also, UAH had one of those panic enmail/call everyone systems installed after the V-Tech shootings a couple years back. The Campus police for some reason didn't bother to activate the system until an hour and a half, damned near two hours AFTER the shooter was already in custody. I think Chief what's his nuts is about to lose his damned job. While they're at it they should look into Dr. Williams and his new office. Campus cops are understaffed and under funded (hell, most campus services are for that matter), but Dr. "Call Me Dave" Williams has a brand new office...

Professor accused in Ala. slayings shot her brother in Mass. 24 years ago
February 13, 2010 09:24 PM

BRAINTREE -- The University of Alabama biology professor accused of opening fire and killing three colleagues at a faculty meeting Friday shot and killed her teenage brother more than two decades ago in Massachusetts, according to authorities.

But a local police chief and the district attorney’s office gave differing accounts today of the 1986 shooting, which occurred at the siblings’ home in Braintree, raising questions about the handling of that case.

According to the current Braintree police chief, Paul H. Frazier, Amy Bishop fatally shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth, on Dec. 6, 1986, but was set free the same day by Braintree Police under orders from then-Police Chief John Polio. In news accounts at the time, Polio called the death an accident that happened when Bishop was learning how to unload a shotgun.

Frazier challenged that account today, saying instead that Bishop shot her brother during an argument and fled on foot with the 12-gauge shotgun before being captured by police, who handcuffed her and took her to the station. The case file, including the report of the incident, disappeared shortly thereafter, he said.

‘‘I don’t want to use the word ‘coverup,’’’ Frazier said. ‘‘I don’t know what the thought process was of the police chief at the time.’’

But the Norfolk County district attorney’s office this evening released a six-page report from its archives that showed State Police investigators reviewed the case with Braintree Police and concluded that Seth Bishop’s death was an accident.


In the report, dated March 30, 1987, a Braintree Police captain said that Amy Bishop was released on the day of the shooting because she was too emotional to be questioned properly and because her mother said the shooting was accidental.

Local and State Police investigators returned to the home 11 days later to meet with Amy and her parents individually.

According to the investigation report, after Amy and her father had a disagreement, he left for a shopping trip and she went to her room. Amy decided to go to her parents’ room to teach herself to load the shotgun the family had acquired the previous year for protection after a break-in. She succeeded but could not remove the shells, and the gun fired in the bedroom. Amy then went downstairs to ask for help unloading it and inadvertently shot her brother while her mother watched, according to the report.

Their stories to the detectives contained some discrepancies. Amy’s mother said Amy asked her for help unloading the gun; she told Amy to be careful where she pointed it, and that Amy turned and accidentally shot her brother. Her mother said she screamed and called the police, as Amy ran out of the house.

Amy said she asked her brother, not her mother, for help unloading the gun, and that she was pointing it beside her leg for safety. She said her brother told her to point it up instead. As he walked across the kitchen floor, someone said something, and Amy turned and the gun went off.


Frazier said at a press conference this afternoon that he was a patrolman at the time of the shooting, but was not one of the officers who responded to the Bishop home. He based his account on an officer who was at the scene.

At his home in Braintree today, Polio, who is retired, disputed Frazier’s version.
‘‘That’s a joke. That’s got to be a joke. If anybody knows history, I never covered anything up,’’ he said. He said he thought that the Bishop family’s explanation of an accident was murky and that he wanted the district attorney to hold an inquiry.

But just one day after the shooting, Polio told the Globe, ‘‘every indication at this point in time leads us to believe it was an accidental shooting.’’

The district attorney at the time, current US Representative William D. Delahunt, is out of the country and could not be reached for comment.

Frazier said that the Bishop case file was missing from the records today and that he was told by an officer that it had been missing since at least 1988.

Seth Bishop was pronounced dead at a Quincy hospital 46 minutes after the shooting, from a gunshot wound to the abdomen, according to the Globe accounts.

The teen was an accomplished violinist who played with the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. He won third place at a statewide science fair and was an aspiring electrical engineer and Northeastern University freshman at the time of his death.

In Friday's shooting, Bishop, 42, a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, allegedly shot and killed three of her colleagues and wounded three others in an apparent tenure dispute at the Huntsville campus, the Associated Press reports.

Bolding mine.

So, she loaded the shotgun, and didn't know how to unload it. Maybe I can understand someone completely unfamiliar with guns not knowing how to unload a shotgun, but really, it can't be that hard. Pump it, pull the lever, or something.

And then the gun went off, and
(1) she didn't leave it alone.
(2) No one came to check what the hell was going on.

I mean, to me, when the gun does something unexpected, you stop what you are doing and either correct it with the gun pointed in a safe direction, or you put the gun down (also in a safe direction), perhaps with a note saying it's loaded and/or borked, and go get someone who KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING to help you out.

You DO NOT carry or swing a loaded malfunctioning gun around, and you sure as hell don't point it at anyone, ever.

Hell, if you don't know what you're doing, maybe you shouldn't touch the gun at all, or ask someone else to help you.

Disclaimer: I was not raised with guns, I was taught simply never to touch a gun. I have, however, fired at least 5 different projectile weapons, including a 20-gauge pump-action shotgun and a .22 rifle.

[Havok]

Cant say I blame her. If I got my PhD at Harvard and could only get a position in Alabama, I would probably go on a shooting spree too.

This whack job shoots and kills three people and you say you can't blame her? Even if you are joking, you are quite the piece of shit aren't you. Your AV certainly suits you.

Based on the article about her killing her brother and his accomplishments and the possibility that this shooting has to do with her not receiving tenure, an accomplishment or award, if you will, I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out that this woman has some serious inferiority issues when it comes to her accomplishments.

[Alyrium Denryle]

This whack job shoots and kills three people and you say you can't blame her? Even if you are joking, you are quite the piece of shit aren't you. Your AV certainly suits you.

Oh and I most certainly was joking. I am the sort of person who makes jokes about people who are clearly out of their minds, rather than bewailing tragedy. Call it a personality flaw if you wish, but I am not onet to sit around winging about how twisted and evil the woman is, and how the individuals killed were such a great loss. I cant judge. None of them ever published in journals I read.

Obviously she was frustrated, and probably just a bit crazy. If my university is any indication, she may well have been the victim of some pretty nasty department politics, and her tenure denial could have meant the end of her chosen vocation, the one she dedicated her life to. Add to that the fact that she had to deal with the products of Alabama's K-12 education system on a regular basis and it might be enough to put an already over-stressed and probably emotionally unstable (given the description by a few students and the fact that she murdered her brother in '86) person over the edge. I know I had students last semester who complained about everything, including my teaching evolution, to the dean. At least once a week I wanted to feed them through a wood chipper.

But I did not kill any of them. Believe it or not, I am sane, unlike her. I just have a sense of humor that ventures over into that corner where the gallows and the gutter commingle with eachother.

But I would ask that you not insult the snake. Snakes are good noble creatures and should not be used as a part of an insult against me. That cottonmouth is actually less likely to kill someone who has pissed it off than your average person.

[adam_grif]

A Female university professor is a pretty unusual shooter. Has someone like that done a mass shooting before? Seems like all the ones we hear about are late-teen males with social disorders.

[Darth Wong]

You would think that someone who had killed her own brother with a shotgun (even assuming it's true that it was just an accident) would be barred for life from owning a firearm.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You would think that someone who had killed her own brother with a shotgun (even assuming it's true that it was just an accident) would be barred for life from owning a firearm.

One would think that yes.

A Female university professor is a pretty unusual shooter. Has someone like that done a mass shooting before? Seems like all the ones we hear about are late-teen males with social disorders.

Yeah, these sorts of things are really atypical. Female shooter, with a PhD... they dont kill people very often.

All the more reason to think she is insane.

[Mayabird]

The only other example of a female shooter I know of was a woman in Utah (IIRC) who went into a store and started shooting, but didn't actually kill anybody though a few people were wounded. The vast majority are male, though the age varies widely.

[[R_H]]

Alleged Ala. killer was suspect in attempted bombing of Harvard professor

The professor who is accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama on Friday was a suspect in the attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor in 1993, a law enforcement official said today.

Amy Bishop and her husband, James Anderson, were questioned after a package containing two bombs was sent to the Newton home of Dr. Paul Rosenberg, a professor and doctor at Boston's Children's Hospital.

It was the second startling revelation in two days about the past of Bishop, who is accused of fatally shooting three colleagues and wounding three others Friday afternoon at a faculty meeting on the University of Alabama's Huntsville, Ala. campus.

A Massachusetts police chief revealed Saturday that Bishop had fatally shot her brother in 1986.

Rosenberg was opening mail, which had been set aside by a cat-sitter, when he returned from a Caribbean vacation on Dec. 19, 1993, according to Globe reports at the time.

Opening a long, thin package addressed to "Mr. Paul Rosenberg M.D.," he saw wires and a cylinder inside. He and his wife ran from the house and called police.

The package contained two 6-inch pipe bombs connected to two nine-volt batteries.

In March 1994, the Globe reported that federal investigators had identified a prime suspect in the case. But the article did not name the suspect.

A law enforcement official said today that the investigation by the US Postal Service and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms focused on Bishop, a Harvard postdoctoral fellow who was working in the human biochemstry lab at Children's Hospital at the time, and her husband, Anderson.

Bishop surfaced as a suspect because she was allegedly concerned that she was going to receive a negative evaluation from Rosenberg on her doctorate work, the official said. The official said investigators believed she had a motive to target Rosenberg and were concerned that she had a history of violence, given that she had shot her brother to death in 1986.

Investigators conducted a search of the home where Bishop and Anderson were living and questioned the couple, the official said. Anderson was questioned about whether he had purchased any of the components used to make the bombs, the official said.

During a search of Bishop's computer, authorities found a draft of a novel that Bishop was writing about a female scientist who had killed her brother and was hoping to make amends by becoming a great scientist, according to a person who was briefed on the investigation and spoke to the Globe on the condition of anonymity.

The US attorney's office in Boston did not seek any charges against Bishop or Anderson, and no one was ever charged with mailing the bombs to Rosenberg. Federal prosecutors did not immediately return calls today.

Anderson today confirmed that he and his wife had been questioned in the attempted bombing, but said that they had been cleared, the New York Times reported on its website.

“We were not suspects,” he said. “They questioned everybody that ever knew this guy.”

“That was a disaster,” he said of the investigation. “That was a mess. In my files I have a letter from the ATF saying, ‘You are hereby cleared in this incident. You are no longer a subject of the investigation.’”

At his home, Rosenberg declined to comment today and referred questions to Children's Hospital administrators. Hospital officials said information on Bishop and the case was not immediately available and declined further comment.

Sylvia Fluckiger, a lab technician who worked with Bishop at the time, said Bishop had been in a dispute with Rosenberg shortly before the bombs were discovered.

Shortly after the attempted bombing, Fluckiger said, Bishop told her she had been questioned by police. According to Fluckiger, Bishop said police asked her if she had ever taken stamps off an envelope that had been mailed to her and put them on something else.

"She said it with a smirk on her face,'' said Fluckiger. "We knew she had a beef with Paul Rosenberg. And we really thought it was a really unbelievable coincidence that he would get those bombs."

Sergeant Mark Roberts, a spokesman for the Huntsville Police, said today that police in Alabama had been informed that Bishop was a suspect in the 1993 mail bombing case.

"Presently, we are trying to confirm it through law enforcement resources,'' he said.

Roberts said the crime scene at the university was so large -- the building is some three acres -- that detectives had just finished gathering all the evidence in the shootings.

"What we're doing now, they finally got all the evidence and they're starting to go through it,'' he said.

Bishop, 44, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville since 2003, allegedly opened fire during a faculty meeting Friday, killing three colleagues and wounding three others, reportedly after learning at the meeting that she was being denied tenure.

Anderson was detained and questioned by police but has not been charged.

On Saturday, the police chief in Braintree confirmed that Bishop had fatally shot her brother in the family home in December 1986.

Chief Paul Frazier raised questions about the circumstances of the shooting and the lack of records on the case, but the Norfolk County district attorney's office released a State Police investigation report that concluded that the shooting was an accident.

A Previous Death at the Hand of Alabama Suspect

The neurobiologist accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, on Friday fatally shot her brother in 1986 in suburban Boston, and the police there are now questioning whether their department mishandled that case when it let her go without filing charges.

Early Saturday, the police in Huntsville charged the neurobiologist, Amy Bishop, who they said was 45, with capital murder in the shootings Friday that also left three people wounded during a faculty meeting. Dr. Bishop, who appeared to have had a promising future in the biotechnology business, had recently been told she would not be granted tenure, university officials said.

On Saturday afternoon, the police in Braintree, Mass., announced that 24 years ago, Dr. Bishop had fatally wounded her brother, Seth Bishop, in an argument at their home, which The Boston Globe first reported on its Web site. The police were considering reopening the case, in which she was not charged and the report by the officer on duty at the time was no longer available, said Paul Frazier, the Braintree police chief.

“The release of Ms. Bishop did not sit well with the police officers,” Chief Frazier said in a statement, “and I can assure you that this would not happen in this day and age.” He said at a news conference on Saturday that the original account describing the shooting as an accident had been inaccurate and, The Globe said, that while he was reluctant to use the word “cover-up,” it did not “look good” that the detailed records of the case have been missing since 1988.

A 1987 state police report, released Saturday by the Norfolk County district attorney’s office, said that Dr. Bishop tried to teach herself to use the family’s shotgun after a break-in occurred at their home. She said she had loaded the gun but could not unload it and asked her brother for help, in their mother’s presence. She said the gun accidentally went off, striking her brother. Because her mother, Judith Bishop, confirmed that account, the report said, the death was ruled accidental.

But Chief Frazier said in his statement that the officer on duty, Ronald Solimini, remembered that Dr. Bishop had shot and killed her brother after an argument. She fired another round from the shotgun into the ceiling as she left the home, the officer said, and fled down the street with the shotgun. The officer also remembered her pointing the shotgun at a vehicle in an attempt to get the driver to stop, the chief said.

Another officer, Timothy Murphy, seized the shotgun, and Dr. Bishop was handcuffed and transported to the police station under arrest, Chief Frazier said.

He said that he spoke with the person who was the booking officer at the time, who recalled getting a call “he believes was from then-Police Chief John Polio or possibly from a captain on Chief Polio’s behalf” to stop the process. Dr. Bishop was released from police custody, and the two left the police station by a rear exit, Chief Frazier said.

But Mr. Polio, 87, reached at home on Saturday, called even the suggestion of a cover-up laughable and said that the case had been handled lawfully. He said he remembered there being a shooting and recalled that Dr. Bishop and her brother had been “horsing around.”

“Everything was done that should have been done under the circumstances,” Mr. Polio said in a phone interview. “She was questioned, and then turned over to her mother. The determination was made that we were going to turn the inquiry over to the district attorney.”

The district attorney at the time was Bill Delahunt, who is now a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts. Mr. Delahunt was traveling in Israel and could not be reached.

Dr. Bishop, a grant-winning scientist and a mother of four, is now charged with murder. If convicted, she would be eligible for the death penalty in Alabama.

She was part of a biotechnology start-up that had won an early round of financing in a highly competitive environment, but people who knew her said she had learned shortly before the shooting that she had been denied tenure at the university.

On Friday, she presided over her regular anatomy and neurosciences class before going to an afternoon faculty meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.

There she sat quietly for about 30 or 40 minutes, said one faculty member who had spoken to some of the dozen people who were in the room. Then Dr. Bishop pulled out a 9-millimeter handgun and began shooting, firing several rounds, the police said. At least one person in the room tried to stop her and prevent further bloodshed, said Sgt. Mark Roberts of the Huntsville Police Department.

Dr. Bishop stopped shooting when the gun either jammed or ran out of ammunition, the faculty member said.

After she left the room, the police said, she dumped the gun — for which she did not have a permit — in a second-floor bathroom. The people still in the conference room barred the door, fearing she would return, the faculty member said.

Dr. Bishop was arrested outside the building minutes later, Sergeant Roberts said at a morning news conference on Saturday.

The 911 call came at 4:10 p.m., the authorities said. Few students were in the building, and none were involved in the shooting, said Ray Garner, a university spokesman. At the time, Dr. Bishop’s husband, James Anderson, was across the street from the campus, where he worked at the start-up company, Prodigy Biosystems, said Dick Reeves, the company chairman. He left to pick up his wife, apparently having no idea what had happened, Mr. Reeves said.

Officials said the dead were all biology professors: G. K. Podila, the department’s chairman, who is a native of India, according to a family friend who answered the phone at his house; Maria Ragland Davis; and Adriel D. Johnson Sr. Two other biology professors, Luis Rogelio Cruz-Vera and Joseph G. Leahy, as well as a professor’s assistant, Stephanie Monticciolo, were at Huntsville Hospital. Mr. Cruz-Vera was in fair condition; the others were in critical condition.

Mr. Garner said Dr. Bishop, who arrived in the 2003-4 academic year, was first told last spring that she had been denied tenure. If a tenure-track professor is not granted tenure after six years, the university will no longer employ them, Mr. Garner said. This would have been the final semester of Dr. Bishop’s sixth year.

The university does have an appeals process, and people who knew Dr. Bishop said she had appealed the decision.

Dr. Bishop may have had academic problems, but her business prospects seemed bright. She had developed a new approach to treating Lou Gehrig’s disease, which a company was in the process of licensing for development. And she and her husband, a computer engineer with a biology degree, had invented an automated system for incubating cells that investors said would be a vast improvement over the petri dish. The system is to be marketed by Prodigy Biosystems, which raised $1.2 million in capital financing.

“From the way it looked to us, looking from the outside, she’s had success,” said Krishnan Chittur, a chemical engineering professor. “I’ve been here longer than she has, and she’s had more success raising money than I’ve had.”

The tenure decision would not have affected Dr. Bishop’s standing at Prodigy, where she sits on the board, but it would have lowered her status among her peers and deprived her of a laboratory and institutional support for further research, Mr. Reeves said, adding that she had already begun to look for another job.

Dr. Chittur said Dr. Bishop was a respected scientist who nevertheless had trouble getting along with colleagues. As members of the biotechnology program, students have to pass core classes in biology, chemistry and chemical engineering. But Dr. Bishop became convinced, he said, that the chemical engineering professors were trying to keep biology students from succeeding by making the classes too difficult.

“It was one of those things that ultimately became irrational with her, in my opinion,” Dr. Chittur said.

Some students also had problems with Dr. Bishop’s teaching style, saying she simply read from the book in class but then tested them on material that she had not covered. Nursing students repeatedly complained to Dr. Podila, the department chairman, as well as to the dean, and even sent a petition, said Caitlin Phillips, a junior in the nursing program, who took two courses with Dr. Bishop in her sophomore year

She was “very socially awkward with students” and never made eye contact during personal conversations, Ms. Phillips said. “We all had kind of a problem with her. She never really taught much. She just read straight from the book.”

But Dr. Bishop also defended students, saying a new policy requiring freshmen and sophomores to live on campus was too expensive and would affect diversity. She was involved in an effort to censure the university president, David B. Williams, over that and other policies, according to Richard Lieu, a Distinguished Professor of Astrophysics at the university who sits on the Faculty Senate.

She was not the only vocal protester. But last month, the censure vote failed, 20 to 18.

Dr. Bishop and Mr. Anderson have four children, ranging in age from 9 to 18, Mr. Reeves said, and they frequently took them to hockey and soccer games.

He and others who knew Dr. Bishop described her as a normal person, perhaps a little quirky but no more so than most scientists. They expressed total shock at the shootings.

“She was a very outspoken person,” Mr. Reeves said, “and outspoken people don’t bottle things up.”

What a crazy bitch. I really feel sorry for her children (and of course the victims).

[KrauserKrauser]

Working with my shotgun my dad recently gave me I could easily see how she could load the gun and then not be able to unload it.

If it was a pump shotgun she could easily load shells in but to get a round chambered she would had to have moved the action which is usually locked in some way. For my gun at least there is a button at the rear of the trigger guard that needs to be pressed for the action (pump) to open up and the pump to move and forth to chamber a round.

It's possible that she by happenstance was able to get this to work once and chamber a round without knowing how, but that is a bit of a stretch. Then again this is a child we are dealing with so who knows.

I guess the benefit of the doubt would lean towards horrible accident.

[Solauren]

Sounds like someone with both violent tendencies (if sparadic), with a very high opinion of herself.

We don't know what the arguement was about, but she decided to turn it into a novel to make herself look good. (Murder)
Negative Peer Review of her work? Pipe Bomb (attempted murder)
Negative Peer Review of her work (denied tenure) - Shooting Rampage (Murder, Attempted Murder).

She has such a high opinion of herself and her own mental abilities, she'll KILL to avenge any offense to them.

Wow. That's beyond insane.